SOCCER: Troy falls to well-red Rochester team

ROCHESTER HILLS — The Rochester boys soccer team has gotten quite used to playing with 10 players on the field of late.

For those not real familiar with the rules of soccer, that’s a bit of a problem since a team is supposed to have 11 players on the field.

Last week in a 2-1 loss to Clarkston, the Falcons played with 10 men for the last 50 minutes following a red card that was awarded to one of its players, and eventually Clarkston took advantage by scoring the game-winning goal.

On Tuesday in another pivotal Oakland Activities Association Red Division game against Troy, the state’s No. 4 ranked team in Division 1, Rochester again found itself a man down following a red card with over 20 minutes left to play.

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Fortunately for the Falcons, instead of feeling another home defeat at the hands of another league opponent, they ended up having the opposite feeling thanks to a short-handed goal, to quote hockey terminology.

Rochester held firm on defense and then capitalized on its big chance, as sophomore Nash Popovic scored on a breakaway with 10:57 remaining to give the Falcons a 1-0 win over Troy.

An honorable mention in Division 1, Rochester improved to 5-2 overall and 2-1 in league play, while Troy fell to 9-2-1, 2-1.

Following some Troy pressure in the Rochester box, Rochester junior Thomas Forde cleared the ball out towards midfield to Popovic, who dribbled around the last Troy defender between him and the goal, calmly carried the ball up the field 50 yards and past the goalkeeper, then fired a shot into an open net.

“It was a team effort overall,” Popovic said. “Everyone out there played a great game. The goal was good, but I played a (bad) game overall. I got the goal and got lucky. But it was a team effort the whole way.”

In addition to Popovic’s goal, Rochester rightfully had lots of praise for senior goalie Matt Hawes, who made eight saves, most of which were the brilliant variety from point-blank range.

“He came up huge,” Rochester head coach Chris Purgatori said. “He’s a converted field player that I had last year and he wanted to step up and he wanted to play. He’s worked his tail off in practice every single day. It definitely paid off today.”

The red card for Rochester came after a defender fouled from a behind a Troy player who was going in on a breakaway.

The foul occurred just outside the Rochester penalty box, but didn’t end up hurting the Falcons because the free kick sailed over the crossbar.

For Troy, it was its first taste of defeat in regulation this season.

Troy head coach Brian Zawislak said it was an opportunity lost knowing his team had an extra player, but was overall pleased with how his team performed.

“I thought we played really well tonight,” he said. “We were just on the wrong end of it. We just have to finish a chance here and there. Even when we got down a goal, we didn’t panic. We created three or four chances and their goalie came up big and really played outstanding.”